History degree plan

[LevelUP]

When you learn online, you are on your own.

You already have a bachelor's degree and a master's, so why not just buy college textbooks and learn on your own without doing courses?

Find a college, find what books, they use, buy the books they use.

[Duneranger]

The MA one. Before granting your degree, schools run some sort of final degree check.

Let's say you want to get a MA History from John Doe University. You get admitted on the basis of your BS in Psychology from Sam Smith University. After taking a few JDU classes, you realize that you could "convert" your BS Psych into a BA History at TESU. So you apply to TESU and send in your current degree from SSU + your newly minted JDU History credits. You fill in the other TESU requirements and graduate in May of 2024. Meanwhile, you're still working on the Master's degree. In December of that year, you apply for graduation. JDU checks over your requirements and pulls records from the super sekrit pan-scholastic database. They see that you have a TESU degree that you never reported! Graduation is denied until you send them a TESU transcript. When they get the TESU transcript, they see JDU classes on it. If not allowed by JDU policies, this could get your graduation denied until you complete further classes or, possibly, get you kicked out and blacklisted. Forfeiting all credits and the degree you otherwise just finished.

Oof that would be a tough pill to swallow.

[Duneranger]

When you learn online, you are on your own.

You already have a bachelor's degree and a master's, so why not just buy college textbooks and learn on your own without doing courses?

Find a college, find what books, they use, buy the books they use.

I definitely read on my own but having a History MA is sort of odd with a STEM BS. Also MAs are usually really specialized and I wanted some structured courses that gave me a better survey of historical topics.

[bjcheung77]

That's actually pretty common, it's not as odd as you think it is... For example, someone would get an AAS in some technical emphasis, take a BALS in something like History or another concentration, and then end up with a Masters in Organizational Leadership. This is because they went for degrees that interest them at that time... You don't need a specific Bachelors to get into a specific Masters, you just need the prerequisites and entry requirements completed.

[Duneranger]

That's actually pretty common, it's not as odd as you think it is... For example, someone would get an AAS in some technical emphasis, take a BALS in something like History or another concentration, and then end up with a Masters in Organizational Leadership.  This is because they went for degrees that interest them at that time... You don't need a specific Bachelors to get into a specific Masters, you just need the prerequisites and entry requirements completed.

I totally get that, but it was REALLY difficult keeping up in a pretty rigorous History MA program (well known ranked program). I didn't have the background and lucked into it with solid LORs. It was not easy and I don't recommend it without a solid humanities background at the least.

IMO going from History to OL is a lot different from going from STEM to an intense History MA where all the students around you have extensive research experience in the field already. I constantly felt behind and got thumped hard on a few papers at first.

0/10 don't recommend it haha

[dfrecore]

If you want a BA in History from TESU or UMPI, since you already have a bachelor's degree, you don't need to do any GE's - just the major/AoS.

So at TESU, you'd need:
Western Civilization I & II or World History I & II
US History I & II
Non-Western History (basically not US or Western Europe)
Historiography & Historical Methods
Liberal Arts Capstone course
12cr History Electives
12cr Humanities/History Electives
You need 18cr of UL, capstone will count as 3cr so 5 other UL courses in whatever you want.

For UMPI, you would need 6cr of a Foreign Language, but that can be done via Sophia. Then take Am Govt, another PoliSci course, and then a bunch of History electives. You can do them through SDC, including some UL I think, and then do the remaining 30cr at UMPI.